DETERMINATION
BRINGS
NATIVE TITLE
Recognition of Indigenous
land rights on North Stradbroke
Island is paving the way for new
jobs, new development and
changes to land use, Maria Tan
and Kate Johnston report.
mericans know July 4 as Independence Day;
Minjerribah’s traditional owners might well
call it that too.
On July 4, 2011, the Dunwich Community Hall
became the Federal Court of Australia for a few
hours, as Honourable Justice Dowsett sat to
deliver his final determination on the matter of
native title over North Stradbroke Island and its
surrounding waters.
The claims covered the majority of North
Stradbroke Island, Peel Island, Goat Island, Bird
Island, Stingaree Island, Crab Island and the
surrounding waters of Moreton Bay. It was 16
years since islanders Ian Delaney and Dale Ruska
first lodged a claim for native title over NSI.
Continued page 14...

A

Native title applicant Ian Delaney. PHOTO: MR. T

CATCHTHE

.com.au

CALL 1800REDCAT
Snorkel between games...there’s so much to do!
NORTH STRADBROKE ISLAND

NEWS FEATURE

DETERMINATION BRINGS NATIVE TITLE
…from page 1

t was a historic moment for Minjerribah, for
Queensland and for Australia, and the first
successful native title claim in southeast
Queensland. The Federal Court determination recognises exclusive native title rights and
interests over approximately 2,264 hectares of
land, and non-exclusive native title rights and
interests over approximately 22,639 hectares
of land and approximately 29,505 hectares of
the Moreton Bay Marine Park.
It was a day of joy, emotion and pride –
and it heralded a new future for Minjerribah; a paradigm shift in how the Island’s
natural resources will be managed, how its
profits will be shared, and how its Traditional Owners will be respected.
The Quandamooka people now have
recognised rights including the right to live
and conduct traditional ceremonies; take,
use, share and exchange traditional natural
resources; conduct burial rites, teach about
the physical and spiritual attributes of the
area; and maintain places of importance
and areas of significance.
Native title claimant Ian Delaney believes
the community has made the right decision.
He says it is up to the younger generation to
move forward.
“For this to work now, everybody’s got to
pull together,” he told SIN. “We’ve got a
commitment from the state government
that whatever we put our hand to, they’re
going to support us. And I think Anna Bligh
will say the same thing. And if the LNP get
in next year, they’ll say the same thing,” Mr
Delaney said.
For Aunty Margaret Iselin, President of
the Minjerribah-Moorgumpin Elders in
Council, native title rights on the Island are
about recognition.
“Of course you’ve gotta work with the government on all these issues and that’s how it
should be,” she said. “You draw up ILUAs
[Indigenous Land Use Agreements] and you
have to sit down and talk, and talk, and talk
to make it happen,” Aunty Margaret said.
She says those in doubt about the determination should attend consultation meetings. “They need to go along to the meetings. They need to go along and ask questions to ease their minds on what issues they
want to bring up,” Aunty Margaret said. “It’s
no good you being in the background and
saying things and you don’t know what
you’re talking about.
“It could be a good determination you
know, but it means that we’ve all got to pull
together on it; that’s the main thing,” she said.
edland City Council’s (RCC) North
Stradbroke Island Councillor, Craig
Ogilvie, told SIN there would be new plans
that “will necessitate changes to the development patterns in the townships”, but
that otherwise, Council’s role will not
dramatically change.

R

PHOTOGRAPH BY SAM CRAIG

Native title determination celebrations on Dunwich Oval.
“Our major role, if anything, is going to
be in the land local area planning that will
be done for the three townships,” Cr
Ogilvie said. “There will be some minimum
levels of new development because of the
determinations, but there will have to be a
lot of planning done in conjunction with
the community to work out what other
development might happen, if any.
“The economic transition planning that is
being done now is critical to making sure that
we continue to exist as a community with
high levels of employment and prosperity,”
Cr Ogilvie said. “I’m skeptical about the
potential of eco-tourism to replace mining as
a source of jobs, but there is no doubt there
will be some jobs [in eco-tourism] and in
national park management and construction.”
One instance of new jobs will be in the
running of the Island’s six campgrounds,
which will move from RCC management to
a corporation owned and run by the Quandamooka people. This transition has been
underway for some time and can become
operational now that native title has been
determined.
“The new management of the campgrounds will bring a much better business
focus and a big capital injection to the
Island,” Cr Ogilvie said.
Redland City Council has also been
establishing new planning groups, with the
state government and the Quandamooka
people, to tackle community consultation
and future land use planning on the Island.
A body corporate called the Quandamooka Yoolooburrabee Aboriginal Corporation has been set up to manage the
rights of all native title holders, while RCC
and the state government have established
four new groups to manage community
consultation and planning for national
parks, recreational reserves, township
developments and land bank planning.

14 STRADDIE ISLAND NEWS — 10 YEARS OF LIVING IN SIN

ow the land and waters will be used
under native title is set out in two Indigenous Land Use Agreements (ILUAs)
between Redland City Council, the state government and the Quandamooka people.
National Native Title Tribunal deputy
president John Sosso told SIN the ILUAs are
currently undergoing registration with the
tribunal.
“They’ll be placed on a register of native
title interests and will be binding on the parties for the length of the agreement. The
registration of those Indigenous Land Use
Agreements will result in the consent determinations made by the Federal Court [in its
Dunwich sitting] becoming fully operational,” Mr Sosso said.

Mr Sosso said only general details from
the ILUAs would be made public, as both
contracts are commercial in confidence.
While unable to disclose details of the
ILUAs, Kevin Smith, chief executive officer
of Queensland South Native Title Services,
legal representatives of the Quandamooka
people, told SIN the agreements “could be
along the lines of being able to use that land
for business opportunities and broader economic opportunities.
“The land use agreement is essentially the
framework to allow that. To give certainty to
both parties and allow opportunities in the
future to plan for the economic independence of the Quandamooka,” Mr Smith said.
One of the original applicants to the
native title claim, Dunwich resident Dale
Ruska, withdrew in protest in 2001 because
he had lost faith in the process.
“The Aboriginal people were forced to
compromise throughout the whole process.
The state government would not agree to
offer any benefits packages to the Quandamooka people or any compensation,
unless the Quandamooka people agreed to
validate all invalid acts and free the state
government from any future native title
compensation liabilities. That was a condition of settlement.
“So the Aboriginal peoples’ hands were
tied and they more or less didn’t have a say
over the outcome, apart from accepting
what the state government was offering,” Mr
Ruska told SIN.
pokesman for the Belgian-owned sand
mining company Sibelco, Paul Smith,
said the mining company had “tried to discuss an ILUA with the Quandamooka people, separate from the native title process.

S

SPRING 2011

“There was a lot of pressure on the
Quandamooka to complete the state ILUA
in order to get the native title process going,
and they elected that they didn’t want
to enter into a Future Acts ILUA with the
company,” Paul said.
NP State member for Cleveland, Mark
Robinson, says actions by the Bligh Government have severely limited the income
the Quandamooka people could otherwise
have earned.
“The mine was prepared to put up $28
million dollars in its own ILUA to the Quandamooka people,” Mr Robinson told SIN.
“Now that money has been largely lost
because of the way that the government has
locked in the legislation.”
“Until they develop a planning process
and the town plan, there’s a lot of uncertainty created by the ILUAs — the state and
Redlands Council ILUAs,” Paul Smith said.
“A lot of people don’t understand how it
[native title] works.
“There’s a lot of myths and a lot of emotion and a lot of expectation that needs to
be managed until people figure out how it
all really works in practice,” he said.
He stressed that “differences of opinion”
between Sibelco and the state government
“have nothing to do with the Quandamooka
people”.
“Underlying tenure is always an issue
between the state and the native title holders,” he explained. “We hold mining leases
and those mining leases are still granted and
when we’re finished with them it’ll all go back
to native title land or some other tenure.”
During consent determination celebrations at Dunwich on July 4, Premier Anna
Bligh revealed that mining royalties would

L

be paid to the Quandamooka people until
mining ceases on the Island. Ian Delaney
told SIN that royalties could range between
$2 million and $5 million each year until
mining ceases, which he described as
“peanuts”.
“Because these fellas [Sibelco] don’t earn
billions of dollars, we only get peanuts actually,” he said.
Paul Smith said: “We’re not paying the
Quandamooka people directly. We pay our
normal royalty to the state government
and they must be giving them a percentage of that.”
State Environment Minister, Vicky Darling,
told SIN mining royalties would be “based
upon the formula in the Aboriginal Land Act
1991, which is dependent upon the amount
received by the state each financial year”.
nna Bligh says native title rights are
essentially about legal recognition of the
Quandamooka people as traditional
landowners.
“Native title does not override freehold,
people who own freehold title on the Island
continue to do so,” the Premier said. “This
does not in any way interrupt the title of
other land holders, such as people who own
homes on the Island.
“What it means is that some parts of the
Island can and will be declared as Aboriginal land for the purpose of Aboriginal business. That means that national park and
conservation areas can and will be jointly
managed with Quandamooka people and
they will have legal recognition for that.
“In essence, it means a legal recognition
that the Quandamooka people have always
and will always be the traditional owners of
this country.”